BELGIUM: Belga

Belgians began suddenly last week to think in belgas. Overnight King Albert, by royal decree, proclaimed the creation of a new monetary unit, the belga, worth exactly five Belgian paper francs and exactly .209211 grams of gold.

The royal decree amounted, of course, to stabilizing the Belgian paper franc at .041842 grams of gold, or (at present rates of exchange) 36 francs to the dollar. This was accomplished by floating a $100,000,000 international loan (see p. 35) with the proceeds of which the Bank of Belgium will support the belga (i.e. the paper franc in multiples of five) at fixed parity.

Finance Minister Emile Franqui, and M. Franck, Governor of the Bank of Belgium, were acclaimed as the two Belgian financiers chiefly responsible for negotiating the international loan, and “advising” King Albert, recently created “Dictator of Belgium” (TIME, July 26) to stabilize the old franc by decree instead of creating a new currency.

For this reason the stabilized Belgian franc—hereafter to be quoted on international exchange in belgas—was dubbed by fiscal humorists last week the “Franck-Franqui franc.”